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Wednesday, 29 June 2011

I was kindly supplied with this book by Netgalley to review, I've had some great reads through there and discovered some super new authors. What attracted me to read this one was the description which likened it to Fingersmith and The Dress Lodger both books I really loved. The cover looks enticing and the basic principal of the storyline sounds interesting.

I wanted to love this too, I really did - but sadly it missed the mark completely. Its a historical account of an investigation into a dead baby found buried in the 17th century when concealing the death of an illegitimate child was classed as murder.

I failed to engage with the heroine Rachel Lockyear, in fact all the characters were 2 dimensional, the story line is disjointed and dull and the writing style is turgid and difficult to get into. There are a few bald Americanisms thrown into this story supposedly set in 1600s London, and I got absolutely no sense of place or time both of which could have been painted so descriptively.

It was pretty darned awful in every way and the nauseatingly sentimental and lengthy scenes of alleged romance and love failed to stir my passion, leaving me yawning and longing for a mug of cocoa.

I fail to see how anyone could even loosely mention it in the same breath as the 2 aforementioned books to which its compared as there truly is NO comparison.

By the way if you did enjoy Fingersmith and the Dress lodger - and want a good recommendation of something similar let me urge you to try

This book however is a much darker and deeper tale of revenge, gripping and quite tense, apart from the fact that you have to suspend disbelief in quite a few places as a few of the things she does would have been difficult if not impossible.

Its the story of a young woman, Rachel who has been brought up with her parents and sister in an 18th century coaching inn, and when a new turnpike road is planned which will bypass the Inn and ruin their business a horrific and far reaching chain of events is set in motion which change the course of Rachels life forever.

I felt the descriptions and feel for the era, what it would be like to try and run a coaching inn in those days were evocative and real, the heroine is feisty and flawed and not always likeable.

For me the book bore similarities to Slammerkin and The Book of Fires and although its far from perfect it was a jolly good read for anyone who liked these books.

WELCOME TO MY WORLD OF BOOKS

Hello and welcome to my book blog. I hope you enjoy reading my reviews of books I've enjoyed.

I'm happy to consider advance review copies of new novels, in particular, literary historical fiction. I like thought provoking novels with an interesting female protagonist and have a particular penchant for pioneering women.